


Love, Abridged

by spinderkindle



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Accidents, Afterlife, Angels, Angst, Burning alive, Camp Campbell (Camp Camp), Car Accidents, Caretaking, Character Death, Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Neglect, Childhood Trauma, Crying, Death, Demons, Fire, Gen, Ghosts, Gore, Heaven, Hell, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Loneliness, Loss, Loss of Faith, Other, Psychological Trauma, Purgatory, Responsibility, Trauma, camp campbell is a temporary purgatory, my first true fanfic tbh, there may be fluff in the future
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-19 05:24:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16528223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinderkindle/pseuds/spinderkindle
Summary: Sometimes, children die in horrible ways.Sometimes, they need places to rest.Camp Campbell exists as a temporary purgatory for the souls of children whom have passed away suddenly, without warning, and often times, in awful, awful ways. Who better to take care of them than an angel-in-training and a demon applying for forgiveness?





	1. Your Greatest Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> this universe is a bit more angsty than your typical camp camp AU, not to mention disturbing  
> max will arrive soon.

          If you asked the citizens of Sleepy Peak, there had never been another camp on Lake Lilac. The only two that sat there were the girls’ etiquette camp and the boys’ military camp, both on opposite sides. They had claimed the lake since as long as the oldest resident had lived there, and they were the only ones there ever were. Rumors of a third were discounted, discredited, and thrown away, but that had never stopped them from spreading. Every so often, another one would slink its way through the town like vermin.

_I saw a cabin that was never there before._

_There was a young woman with horns like a goat and teeth like the Devil._

_I heard a guitar strum when I walked past the lake._

          Whispers of monsters and see-through children danced across lips and from one wandering mind to the other. The people could gossip for hours. It was the beloved secret of a frightened people. It was their Mothman, their Bigfoot, their thing that went bump in the night.

          In truth, there never was another camp. The clearing had stood barren since the beginning, and had remained that way ever since. Rich, green grass gave the grounds life in its swaying and waving. Its only true inhabitants were frogs and tree squirrels. It was perfectly good land, but no one had staked it. It became its own entity, protected by stories and falsehoods. No one dared step foot on it for fear of disturbing whatever lay there. As such, the streams that babbled along each acre, the oak trees that boasted branches larger than any other, and the newborn tadpoles that lived in the ponds would remain untouched. It would be best to respect a monster.

          Yet, in the counselor’s cabin of an understaffed camp, sunlight streamed through an open window.

          In front of a dull mirror, David ran a thumb over his jawbone, feeling the peach fuzz that never grew in. His hand swept upwards and mussed his hair that never needed cutting. He turned his cheek to see a little half-moon dip in his cheekbone that never healed. If he twisted his shoulder and looked back, he could almost see where the stubs of wings might grow in, but there were never feathers on his pillow or a ring of light around his head.

          His fingers went to the knotted shirt around his neck. It was a kid’s shirt, size small, but it was never his to wear. No, the shirt had been gifted to him by the first camper to graduate from the camp: a young boy named Lyle, age seven, whose head had been taken clean off his shoulders in a head-on crash. He had been shaky and confused when he arrived, mewling for his parents, tearing out clumps of grass and dirt in his little fingers, clenched til they shined white.

          David could recall when he sat beside him that the boy looked up with puffy red eyes and drool bubbling at his lips. He was going through the motions of his training – _watch, wait, listen. Let the child know you’re there. They may be hesitant. They may be scared._ With a trembling touch, David had reached out to pat the boy on his shoulder, but the boy flung himself into his arms and sobbed. By the way he howled, the loneliness must have settled in like poison. David found himself gently curling his arms around Lyle and cradling him for what seemed like hours.

          It had been years since Lyle left. The higher powers had decided that he was fit for relocation, and he was gone within an hour's notice. His departure had left David teary-eyed, but the cloaked beings that shimmered in the moonlight had taken Lyle’s hands and stepped past the boundaries of the camp, out into the unknown, far past what he could see. David didn’t know what lay beyond the wooden archway, far into the thickening forest, out into the fog and mist of the outer realms that he could not comprehend.

          Even now, as he turned to look through the window, the sunlight could only cut through the edges of the woods so much as the fog lingered around the perimeter. No one ever left without the beckoning of a higher calling. The campers only came and went when the powers above demanded. Introductions were infrequent, and farewells were very rare.

          The children were lucky, never knowing why they were there until it was time to leave. Thankfully, the nightmares had stopped for David after twenty, maybe thirty years, but what stayed in the mornings was the taste of smoke in his lungs and the stinging of the flames.  He shuddered, caressing his arms where the skin had peeled off in slivers. He brought his hand to his face, expecting it to be dripping with fat and muscle tissues. These were the thoughts he could not keep away.

 _The Suttons,_ he thought. The Suttons’ house had caught fire one winter night in ‘75. David could still smell that night; an awful, bitter smell of ashes and melting paint. He had just settled down for the night, dressed in flannel shorts and a loose shirt, when a clear-cut scream rang through the air. It startled him out of his bed, tripping over the pillows scattered across the floorboard as he stumbled towards the window. His neighbors were gathering in the street to watch the flames, like a morbid bonfire, crumbling the walls of the house until the frame stuck out. In awe, he reached for the door knob.

          Surely, someone had called the firemen, but the only noise he heard was the crackling of burning wood. David took his place among the bystanders, arms folded close to his body as he regretted leaving his slippers at his bedside. Every way he turned, people were gathering outside of their homes in their nightgowns and pajamas to watch the house consume itself. They stood together in unified silence, watching the beast fold and crumble. It was a spectacle to be feared and admired.

          Only feet away, the Sutton family was huddled together in the dead of night, their faces illuminated by the leaping flames. He counted four of them – mother, father, son, and daughter – but Mrs. Sutton was hugging a tiny white blanket to her chest and sobbing into her husband’s shirt. The blanket wasn’t torn or stained – it was almost brand new.

          David’s heart sank. His eyes darted from the family to the fire. The family was piling in upon themselves, reaching out to each other to hold onto what they had left, reaching up to the sky to beg God for a miracle, but they did not move from the street. He looked behind him, where a crowd had gathered to mingle in the streets. His toes were curling against the asphalt, where falling snowflakes became inseparable from white ash. The blood from his heart was rushing to his head and pulsating against his skull as if to say _run, David, run._

          He took off like a bullet. The frigid cold bit at his face as the smoke stung his eyes, sending hot tears down chilled red cheeks. David found himself pulling his shirt up to his mouth as he stumbled into the house, black smoke pouring from the walls, strangling him until he could no longer breathe. He reached out to guide himself along a wall, but each panel gave way at his touch. The only light he had was the roaring fire surrounding him, licking the cuffs of his pants and singing the edges of his hair.

          The house was unbearable. Each step he took drove razors into his lungs and sent him choking and grasping at something, _anything_ he could hold onto to propel himself forward. The adrenaline surging through his veins pushed him from one room to another, blinding him against the pain in his frantic search. He could not feel his skin flaking off, or his feet slick with blood.

               In the hellish chaos, David heard a shrill whine cut through the air like a knife. He pivoted on his heels, hunched over, following the weak cries and tiny coughing. His hand brushed against a door frame and he clung to it as an anchor. Before him stood a crib painted robin’s egg blue beneath a swirling black cloud gathering on the ceiling. Unthinking, he threw himself at the crib, scrambling to grasp the little bundle within.

          His hands wrapped around an infant, hardly a few months old, as it cried and thrashed in its cot. Lifting it closer, he could see its emerald green eyes hidden behind its howling cry. He looked back to the crib, but the mobile had already caught fire, spraying sparks down to the blanket below. With no other choice, David wrapped the infant within his shirt and fought his way to the window.

               The windowpane was tiny, barely a few feet across, with metal rails fixed into the glass. Through the last bits of clear glass, he could see the panicked groups drawing closer. David pushed the pane, but it did not give way. He stepped back and swung his elbow into the center railing, but to no avail; the metal held fast and did not splinter like wood. The sound must’ve rung through to the other side; a cluster of people had looked to it, and one motioned with wide eyes and rapid gestures to the rest of them. A grim realization began to set upon David as he pressed the infant tight to his chest. It had stopped flailing – unconscious, he hoped, anything but dead.

          With no other choice, he stepped back and braced himself. With a steady kick, one of the smaller panels gave way – less than a square foot for him to push the infant through to safety. His hands shook as he unraveled it from his shirt, but the frame was lined with shards of murky gray glass. David clenched his teeth and grasped a handful, breaking it away from the frame and into the soft flesh of his palm. He stifled a howl as it embedded itself into the sensitive nerves, but he only thought about the child as he nudged it through the open space. A pair of hands latched onto it from the other side and wrenched it from his grasp. For only a second, a smile graced David’s face. Then, the panels above him began to cave.

               He had only been halfway through the door when a wooden beam from the ceiling came crashing down and knocked him flat on his stomach. His head collided with the floor panels, blurring his vision into a haze, but only worsening the pain. He wheezed as he tasted soot across his tongue. He did not know if the beam had broken his spine, but when he squirmed, his chest sent shocks of agony jolting through his body. When he squirmed too much, he could taste the copper-penny tang of blood boiling in the back of his throat. Even when he dug his nails into the floorboards with the ferocity of a frightened animal, he could not pry himself out. Now, he was at the mercy of the house.

               The flames lapped at his skin like dogs, pulling it away layer by layer. Gaping black cavities seared into his hands and melted the skin that stuck to his fingertips until the white of bone glistened through. Bits and pieces of him sloughed off in chunks as he writhed, while others shriveled into a dark crisp and tainted the air with the wretched smell of burning meat. He opened his mouth to scream, but his throat was riddled with holes and only gave way to guttural gurgles as bile gushed into his mouth and nose. He had no strength left to struggle. In the gaps between the fallen debris, he could glimpse pure patches of snow and the cherry red of fire trucks scattered across the street, but there were no sirens. There was no crackling. The nauseating stench of immolating hair had long since passed. David could no longer feel the violent agony that had rendered him motionless. The only thing he could do was pray that the infant had survived.

               A warm touch to his shoulder jolted David from his memories. When he looked down, he saw his shoulder beneath bird-like talons painted with chipped purple nail polish. The otherwise-normal hand they belonged to was attached to his co-counselor, Gwen. He turned and offered her a weak smile.

          Gwen raised her eyebrows, and huffed quietly. From her temples protruded two tiny horns, though she did her best to keep them hidden beneath her bangs. Her bottom lip jutted out with overgrown canines that she filed down on the daily. Her eyes were a much calmer purple than her nails and slitted like a cat’s. They were fixed upon him, large with concern.

               “You… alright?” she offered, to which he nodded, perhaps a bit too quickly.

               “Alright,” she said, and motioned her head towards the door. “You ready?”

               David shivered to knock off a few bad thoughts still clinging on. He never knew what became of that infant, if it had died or survived, but he thought of it with each passing day. Without that child, he could still be alive – but without that child, he would have never made it to Camp Campbell, and he could not imagine himself without the camp. It was a bittersweet feeling, but it was something he would never regret.

               He nodded, and opened the cabin door.


	2. Welcome Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What can David see that the campers cannot?
> 
> There's a new arrival at camp, and he has a secret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> even gorier this time around, but maybe things won't be so bad.
> 
> will they?

     “Hey, David?”

     David looked up from his desk. A little girl in red overalls was tugging at the cuff of his sleeve. She barely met his shoulder, even when he was sitting. A spot of open flesh glistened on her shin, which she pointed to with a muddy finger.

     “Can I get a Band-Aid?”

     He gave her a gentle smile that made his dimples show, and stood up from his seat. He made his way to the cabinets perched beside his bed and opened them. There was penicillin, pill bottles, and heat packets; not that anyone ever got sick or irreversibly injured. They were mostly for show, to help keep up the fragile illusion that these kids were at a normal camp.

     Still, they would scrape their knees and bump their toes, and the expectation of pain garnered enough desire for attention. David had attended to plenty of headaches and sore tummies that were all but make-believe.

     His hand bumped against the carton of bandages.

     “Do you want a regular Band-Aid, or a _magic_ Band-Aid, Nikki?” he offered, giving that sing-song voice that he’d learned to keep up around the children. He was only looking at one box of bandages.

     “I want magic!”

     Thankfully, no one ever wanted regular.

     David turned and knelt down in front of the girl, peeking at the pricked patch of skin. Nothing that oozed from her wound was blood, only a frothy pink and white substance. It coursed through every camper’s veins. He could never put a name to what it was, but it didn’t seem to do her any harm, because the wound was deeper than he expected but she was giggling.

     He peeled off the wrapping and touched the bandage to her knee. It would only take him a second to close it, but it was a second he’d have to spend focused.

     He closed his eyes, raising his fingertips off of her skin. A gentle flow of hot air washed back and forth between his palms and the scrape, growing colder as it bounced back and forth, faster and faster. The palms of his hands were trembling and icy.

     When he opened his eyes, the cut had closed, but Nikki’s leg had twisted awfully beneath her until the knee was jutting out to the side. It had popped out from its socket and scraped against her hip until the jagged edges of fractured bone pierced through.

     The red overalls had vanished; her legs were clad with only white bloomers, and the shirt she was wearing had become slouchy, stained cotton that clung wetly to the places she had been punctured. David could make out each place where her ribs had snapped like twigs and bulged through her chest, making her look like a burst balloon stretched over sticks.

     Nikki’s arms were crumpled and flat and hung uselessly at her side. A crook in her torso kept one of her hands locked against her pelvis and the other grazing her kneecap, or at least, where it had been shattered, and was now floating in shards. As he looked up to face her, he bit his tongue.

     Her jaw was pushed so far out of place that it dangled against her neck, her tongue flopping against her throat. One eye shot down to stare at him, while the other remained pressed too far deeply into her head, as though someone had taken a baseball bat and smashed her skull inward.

     Nikki’s teeth waggled as her throat clenched and gaped open. “David,” came her voice, though her mouth could not move to make those sounds. “You’re acting kinda funny.”

     Just like that, it was gone. Where the deformed body had stood was once again a normal child. David sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. He smiled weakly, to which she frowned.

     He had taken too much of her essence. Each spoonful of her energy was a snippet of her soul, bits that she could restore but that would build up inside of David in the form of temporary memories. Even the tiniest of exchanged charges could bring about shockwaves of visions. Simply being around the campers was enough to build up undesirable experiences or flashbacks to their living days.

     Unfortunately for David, the most common happening was a glimpse at the camper’s dead body; the corpse that they had inhabited in their last moments before camp. He had been able to pick through the campers’ brains like file cabinets in the years past, but what he saw was always a gamble.

     Nothing said nausea in the morning like watching a car crash.

     It wasn’t a car crash Nikki had been in – nothing nearly as quick and merciful. With a single, flirtatious mother, she had been forced to stay home alone for hours at a time, listening to the birds sing sweetly from the branches outside her window.

     Every night, she would watch her mother’s Jeep back out of the driveway and turn down the narrow streets, leaving her waiting longingly at the door. Every morning, she would scramble up to the window eager to see her mother, only to be greeted by empty, broken pavement.

     At first, it hadn’t been all that bad. Without enough money for a babysitter, Nikki was free to explore her home as she saw fit. She could watch the scary movies in her mother’s wardrobe, or she could make dinner all by herself like a big girl. No one was stopping her from playing make-believe as a roaring tiger or ferocious wolf, rampaging across the couches and through the hallways, ripping through raggedy stuffed animals and eating couch cushions until the sun came up.

     But no matter how much she pretended, or how much time she spent at the window, she was always by herself. No pot of burnt macaroni and cheese could prove that she was ready to be alone. It was a vicious cycle of loneliness and desperation.

     Months passed like this. Nikki would only see her mother every now and then, mostly when she brought home cold takeout for dinner or washed the piling laundry. Every so often, she would be told to stay in her room and play with her toys. She rebelled still, cramming one ear up against the door to hear the deep, booming voices of the strangers her mother had drawn in.

     It was never enough for Nikki. She was only given glimpses into her mother’s life, the slimmest seams in the curtains to peer through. She wanted to know where she was always off to, leaving her isolated in the coldness of their dimly-lit apartment.

     It had been eleven PM on a Tuesday. Nikki was rewinding _The Lion King_ for what felt like the fiftieth time when she heard the front door creak open, accompanied by the tapping of heels against linoleum.

     She clambered on top of the couch eagerly, hoping for a _goodbye_ or a _love you_ from her mother, but it was the same routine. No hug, no farewell, nothing to let her know that she would be there in the morning.

     A spark of inspiration jolted up her spine. There was no sense in waiting if she could simply come along – a stowaway in a ship carrying cheap perfume and lipstick. She scuttled to the window to peer down at the lot below.

     Her mother was sitting idly in her car, shuffling through her purse. It was practically an invitation. Nikki couldn’t wait another minute. Her footfall was silent the moment she stepped out of the building, creeping low to the ground like a wild animal, close enough to taste the tire tracks and gasoline.

     She turned her attention to the back hatch. If she could fiddle with the lock long enough, it would pop right open. Her mother had to have done it at least a dozen times after the last stranger kicked her license plate in and dented the rear. Eagerly, she hoisted herself onto the rear bumper, wanting to demonstrate that she was smart enough to learn; that she was worthy of being taken along.

     Nikki wiggled her arm up between the car and the spare tire that was only there for show. Her fingers ran along the underside of the dent, searching for the dip of the keyhole. Inside the car, bad hip hop blared from the radio station.

     Her mother revved the engine. Nikki couldn’t see into the car from where she was dangling, and she was sure her mother couldn’t see her, either, but she shoved her face against the car anyway, dreading her own capture. Her fingernails clicked against the ring of the lock. She grinned with excitement; her great scheme wouldn’t fail her today.

     Without warning, the car jolted back. Nikki was thrown from the bumper and onto her side, scuffing her cheek and elbow. She groaned and touched a hand to her face. When she pulled it back, there was crimson beading on her skin. Still, she smirked. A little scrape wouldn’t stop her.

     Undefeated, Nikki’s attention darted to the car again, but it had other plans. The bumper rammed against her chin, knocking her back down. There was a _clack_ , and her mouth filled with the sensation of gushing liquid and raw nerves. The baby teeth that had been wrenched away too soon felt like plastic beads in her mouth. She choked as the blood began to pool in her mouth and turned her head to spit.

     It must have been the teeth coming loose or the welling tears in her eyes, but the first few bones in her foot to crack didn’t send her flying into a panic. Her ankle crumpled like a paper bag. When the tire rolled across, it had balled into a contorted shape with protruding red spurs.

     Her shins snapped like toothpicks beneath the weight of the car. The left one split down the middle, the crack loud enough to make Nikki clasp her ears with balled-up fists.

     The right one didn’t give as easily. The jagged edges of her broken tibia hooked into the rubber like a harpoon. Her own leg dragged her up the pavement, wiping slime and blood across the concrete like a macabre paintbrush as she thrashed and clawed at the tire.

     Nikki couldn’t scream louder than the music. Each cry for help was stopped with gurgling and choking.

     Her leg bent awkwardly beneath her, but the tire finally let go. It had already started to crush her pelvis, sending bone fragments scraping into her spinal cords. Each rib crunched into her intestines. Her collarbones sank into her chest.

     With a sick popping noise, Nikki’s jaw disconnected from her face. The tire was wrenching it open until her chin stuck to her sternum, ripping her tongue from her esophagus. Shrill whines were all she could muster as the tire stopped against her cheekbone.

     The tire turned, twisting and rending her skin. It rubbed into the gaps in her jawbone and then slipped onto the sidewalk. The exhaust pipe gave a final puff ‘goodbye’, and the car sped off.

     She was abandoned, a writhing mound of indiscernible meat; paralyzed, but not numb. Fluids oozed out of every orifice and swirled into a vile puddle beneath her. The street lamps above her were broken, flickering only for the moths.

     In the cold dead of night, Nikki shut her eyes.

     Life was not forgiving enough to send her off to death. For hours, she lay there in the dark. Every minute, an appendage would twitch and send hot electricity across every nerve. She had only the moon now, the moon and the stars, gleaming down at her as they had every night.

     It would not be until 6:26 AM that someone would find her, and another hour before she was pronounced dead at the hospital.

     David had slipped into the shoes of almost every camper; he had been a witness to their deaths. He had fallen, bled out, drowned, suffocated, starved, exploded, and died a thousand more. Camp was a happy place for the traumatized who never knew what happened.

     When he opened his eyes, Nikki was gone. He must’ve zoned out again. David stood up and whirled around to see her at the door, pointing at something in the distance.

     “Hey, was that guy here before?” she asked.

     He took a few steps toward her and leaned into the doorway.

     In the center of the campgrounds, there stood a disheveled child. His hair was untamed and curled around his cheeks, giving him a softer, rounder look, as opposed to the scowl he wore. He was dusting himself off; it was the norm for new campers to wake up in the dirt.

     This boy was barely as tall as Nikki – ten, maybe eleven years old? He rubbed his eyes and glanced up at David.

     Eyes, bright green eyes, tucked beneath furrowed brows and a squint. They held the same pout, the same crinkled freckles, as… someone, from long ago.

     David shook off the tension and let out a short breath. He composed himself, putting on an ear-to-ear smile.

     “Hello, there!” he called, giving a big, Disneyland-style wave. The boy’s scowl only deepened. That was fine, confusion was typical. With great care as not to knock Nikki over, he stepped proudly through the door.

     Before he had even gotten close, the child growled and turned away from him. David’s smile didn’t falter.

     “You must be –“

     Voices only he could hear spun around him. _Max,_ they hummed, _died in twenty-eighteen._ A little help from the higher powers, but name and age was all they would give him – if he could remember what year it was. They’d said twenty… eighteen? That would make him… ten? Time had flown since the seventies.

     Now, like a trained actor, it was time for his script.

     “—Max! My name is David, your new camp counselor here at Camp Campbell! We’ve got lots of fun activities waiting for you just around the corner. But, I wanted to ask you first, how are you feeling?”

     Max blinked at David. David’s smile only widened. He bent down, offering out a hand. Max stared him directly in the eye, and spat in his hand.

    “Fuck you,” he hissed.

     David’s heart sank.

 

     As the hours of the first day passed, David maintained the perfect charade of utter joy. He had no problem escorting Max to his new tent (and tentmate, a boy who’d accidentally melted his own flesh off with acid), or showing him around the mess hall, run by a grouchy old entity that heralded from the void; but when he turned him loose to take turns at cops and robbers, he found himself seeking solace from Gwen.

     “His words got to you that bad, huh?” she teased, gnawing on a leftover turkey drumstick from lunch.

     David shrugged. “It always hurts when a camper says something like that,” he sighed. “but he’s only ten. I’d expect that from – I dunno, Nurf?”

     He gestured to the redhead, who was taking great pleasure in his role as a cop. For a second, he swore he could see gaping holes in his shirt caked with blood. He shuddered.

     Gwen pursed her lips. “Maybe he’s just freaked out. I’d be cussing you out too if you came up to me like that, all happy-go-lucky.”

     “C’mon, Gwen –“

     “Look, David, he’s probably just confused,” she interrupted, gesturing with the drumstick. “The last thing we need is you worrying yourself sick over _another_ camper. He’ll be okay. What’s he gonna do, die _again_?”

     David winced. “I don’t like those D-word jokes.”

     “Did you just call ‘dying’ the ‘ _D-word’_? Jesus – okay, fine. Stalk him around the camp, for all I care. I’m gonna go get some more food.”

     “We don’t even need to –“

     “You know I stress eat, David!” Gwen said, stomping back to the mess hall.

     He sighed and crossed his arms, soothing the goosebumps that had prickled up in patches. From across the field, Max gave him a sneer. David could only return a sorry smile.

     “Oh, and David?” Gwen shouted as she stopped and dug into her pocket. David tilted his head.

     When she pulled her hand out, he swore he could feel his heart start beating. Between her fingers, shining brightly in the sunlight and glimmering with holographic patterns, was an iridescent feather as long as her forearm. The tip angled down sharply; it was clearly a flight feather.

     The splotches of undeveloped color told him it wasn’t from a fully formed wing. Unfinished symbols and pictures glistened like runes in the daylight. Gwen walked over and shoved it in his hand.

     “Found this in the counselor’s cabin,” she said. “Maybe it’s yours.”

      David’s eyes widened and he felt the color drain from his face. He caressed the fibers between his thumb and forefinger. A particular spot of purple caught his eye; if he held it up to the sun just right, he could see where a simple, miniscule marking of a campfire had formed.

     “Are you – Are you sure?” he asked, whipping around to try and see over his shoulder. The nubby growths that would be telltale of budding wings were absent. He strained to see over his other shoulder and reached a hand back, trying to feel between his shoulder blades.

     “Uh, David –“

     “Can you help me check? Are they sprouting? Oh boy, I’ve been waiting for this day for years --”

     “David?”

     “-- this morning, I swore I felt something tender, and I thought ‘oh, maybe it’s just a bruise’, but then I remembered that I can’t _get_ bruises anymore, so I checked again, and I saw –“

_“David!”_

     “Huh?”

      “Feather’s gone.”

     David whirled around and held up his hands. In his excitement, he’d somehow let the feather slip. He checked his pockets, his hair, and the grass around him, but Gwen was pointing toward the skies.

     When he turned his focus to the clouds, he could see the feather dancing in the wind. He let out an exasperated cry.

     “If I'm right, there’ll be plenty more where that came from,” Gwen sighed, patting him on the shoulder.

     “Y-You don’t understand,” he stammered. “That was – That was my first feather! It’s a sign that – that I’m doing what I’m supposed to! Thirty years and they’re finally noticing, this is what I’ve been waiting for my whole life -- er, _after_ life! It’s important! I need to know that this wasn’t a mistake, that I, that I made the _right choice_ when I came here!”

     David swiped uselessly at the sky, stumbling over his own feet as he chased fruitlessly after it. His co-counselor crossed her arms and watched with vague embarrassment. She huffed as his boot swiped a mossy rock and sent him tumbling to the ground.

     Gwen bit her lip and then offered him a hand. “Yeah, but did you really need a feather to tell you that?” she asked. “I’ve been here with you since Hannah Montana started, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you… disappointed.

     “I know, there’ve always been shitty camp activities or kids throwing a fit or _something_ that goes wrong, but you’ve always, just… gone with it, like you didn’t care. Like… it’s just another thing you can have fun with. It’s like the only motivation you need is to make the kids _happy_. At one point, I thought you could’ve just been a camper stuck in a grown man’s body, or some other creepy possession shit.

     “I remember the first time I really talked to you, and it was like, a week after I’d been at camp, or something. It’d been years since I’d been out of the second or third circle of hell, and they’d _finally_ looked over my application for forgiveness and given me the green light. I was so happy, I could’ve died again.

     "They stuck me in Camp Campbell, ‘cause y’know how demons don’t get to choose which purgatory they go to? They put me here, knowing I don’t give half a shit about kids. I was completely burnt out, and you were out there handing out ice cream with enough energy to power a light bulb, even though you’d been up since five.

     “I asked you, ‘Why the fuck would you do this to yourself? I’m on the brink of quitting and going back to giving back rubs to Beelzebub,’ and you said, and I’ll never forget this, you gave me this puppy-eyed look and said, ‘Because I want to give these kids the life they never had.’ And that stayed with me.

     “You look at all these kids and you see the potential that they had, and you nurture them, like you’re their father. I don’t know if it’s because you feel sorry for ‘em ‘cause of the death memories, or if you just love them that much or _what,_ but you care for these kids like you were made for it.

     “I used to be so confused about all the little extra details you tossed in, like getting these kids to eat three meals a day or making sure they go to bed on time. I thought you were either delusional or nostalgic, and I didn’t know which was worse. But I did some thinking, and I realized you weren’t sheltering them or making me work my ass off just to screw with me. You just want them to feel safe.

     “You’re the reason these kids ever get to go to a ‘better place’, David. All the stuff you do gives them that extra push to move on. I didn’t think you’d need a feather to see that.”

     Gwen smiled sympathetically and pulled him to his feet. Tears were welling in David’s eyes. She glanced over his shoulder, and the smile disappeared.

     “Now go take care of that crying kid. It’s my break and I convinced my Forgiveness Supervisor to let me tear into some Ben and Jerry’s.”

     David waved shyly as Gwen made her way back to the counselor’s cabin, and diverted his attention over to the campers. The newest camper was spitting foaming pink liquid into the dirt. His nose was misshapen in two places. Even though he knew that Max couldn’t feel it, paternal instinct set in instantaneously and he rushed to help him. _Maybe Gwen was right_ , he told himself. _Maybe I don’t need wings._

     Max grumbled when he saw David approaching. “I don’t need your help,” he yelled before he spat again, the substance settling into a puddle and then evaporating at his feet.

     David raised his eyebrows. “Max, I think you should come with me to the cabin. I’ll fix you right up and you’ll be back out here in no time, okay?”

     Max scanned the faces of the other campers. Each one was giving him some form of grimace, silently telling him that they agreed with David. He snorted; more pink liquid dribbled down his face. He wasn’t about to put his head down in shame. He would march with his head held high to the cabin, taking pride in the disturbed expression he’d brought to his counselor’s face.

     In the cabin, Max refused every ounce of affection David tried to offer. He’d ripped the paper towel straight from David’s hands, blown his nose, and chucked it back at him. He didn’t acknowledge David’s gentle reassurances, let alone the reminder that they had leftover cookies from last night’s baking activity. Every interaction with him was a chore.

     Eventually, David had had enough. “I hate having to demand things from you, Max,” he scolded. “But this is the one thing I can’t let you do on your own. I have to set the bone, okay?”

     The boy gritted his teeth and clapped a hand over his nose. “You’re not touching me.”

     David stooped to his height. “Max, I’m serious. You have to let me fix it, or else it’ll stay that way forever, and do you really want a crooked nose that badly?”

     “I told you,” Max seethed. “You’re not going to touch me!”

     The tension between them was mounting. David could almost feel the heat radiating from the spiteful front Max had set up. He could sense that behind the mask was a child, lost and frightened, but it would be an ordeal to get him to let his guard down.

     He extended a hand, which Max slapped away mercilessly. His other hand received the same treatment.

     “Max,“ he warned, as he tried to seize him by the shoulder. Max yelped and ducked beneath his grasp to kick his shin. David lost his balance, giving Max just enough time to drop to his stomach and scurry halfway beneath the bed.

     The counselor looked to see the camper dragging himself on his elbows. His hand shot out, but Max was thrashing too much for him to get a grip on anything other than his pant leg.

     “Why won’t you leave me alone?” Max roared, kicking ferociously at David until he had no choice but to let go. He wriggled out to the other side of the bed and sprang up onto his feet.

     David clambered onto the bed and prepared to tackle Max. Defensively, the boy grabbed a framed photo from the nightstand and lobbed it at him. He only narrowly dodged it before a water bottle nailed him straight in the chest, sending him onto his rear.

     Max tried to skirt around the side of the bed, but David swung an arm out and caught him. He cried out in fury and smacked his fists against him, unprepared to admit defeat. David snatched him up and held him at arm’s length.

     Flashes of a boy caked in blood and vomit obscured his vision as he tried to contain Max’s raging essence within his tiny body. With the limited range he had, Max threw his head down and sank his teeth into David’s thumb. Though unharmed, David dropped him. He knew he had crossed a line.

     “I don’t want to be here,” Max growled. It was a common mantra for the campers, something the counselors had heard all too often. Combining lost children with dread and doubt was an unintended specialty of the purgatory camp.

     “I know, Max, but –“

     “I _shouldn’t_ be here,” he barked. “I should be dead.”

     That was a first. David shut his mouth.

     “And unless this shitty camp is some kind of rehab they send fucked up kids to, I know this is hell.”

     He looked David dead in the eye, the spirit in his face an unbridled and twisting wave of emotion. His words dripped with spite.

     "I know that I’m dead.”

     And with that, he took hold of his own nose, wrenched it into place with a sickening _crack_ , and left the cabin.

 

     In the quiet of the moonlight, a figure crouched to pick up a feather that shimmered like the stars.

     He couldn’t be sure that the symbols were truly there, or that the colors were as blotted as he’d hoped, but when his watch struck twelve, the feather fizzled into nothing more than dust and flickered out of sight on the winds.

     Now giddy with anticipation, he flung down his leather suitcase and dropped to his knees. With unsteady hands, he unbuckled his case and rifled through its contents.

     Tarnished crucifixes, worn-down pentacles, priceless daggers, and chalices, nothing that he’d need until – yes, there it was. A shard of a mirror no bigger than his fist, tinted black and polished clean.

     The man gathered a velvet pouch of fine powder. The scent was intoxicating, as spices and smells blended together into a charcoal mix. He didn’t hesitate as he scooped out a handful and sprinkled it haphazardly around the mirror.

     From his pocket, he produced a cheap lighter. He flicked it open and set fire to the ring of powder. It went up in blue flames, lapping at the mirror, threatening to boil over out to the rest of the field and fuel a rampant wildfire, but it stuck to the boundaries.

     The mirror’s reflection rippled. Smoke from the flames gathered on its surface and twirled in a spiral, but it barely reached past the tip of the fire. Fearing that it was too weak to work, the man tossed the entire pouch onto the shard.

     He witnessed the fire consume the bag with great ferocity. The smoke cyclone erupted into the sky until the top spun out of sight, only a speck among the clouds.

     The shard tremored with such force that the grass beneath it flattened into a green paste. The hungry fire obscured the mirror’s surface from his vision. Each cerulean spear tangled with one another until all at once, the pillar of gray collapsed.

     A cloudy sea of gray exploded from the center of the spiral, rushing out into the open field. The man gagged as smoke engulfed him in a strangling embrace. The waves of silver collided with the trees, dissipating into puffs of white.

     When he opened his eyes, he could see a row of shoddy green tents mere yards away. Log cabins, barely visible when he focused his vision, had been erected on the opposite side of the field. The smoldering remains of a campfire crackled at his feet. The wind had turned cold, but the air was stale. Nothing in the meadow was feasible; it had a quality of surreality, like it could disappear if he let it slip out of view.

     This was it.

     This was what he had been aching to find for years.

     It was only a matter of time before he found a premature angel.


End file.
